What the Tulip Market of 1637 Could Bear
What profusion was I before?
In the brack of sand and mulch, farm
compost, rising above the North Sea, far
from the sultan, mathematical
form, a color to ignite Eden in the
hard gray flatness. Peel to my quick,
smuggled to Utrecht, gloved under
ground, more expectant
than midwinter sun. Later, I figure in still-
life paintings with flowers that could not
possibly bud at the same time.
All my manipulations bred without scent,
regrafted, seeded, stored
in burlap, in a cellar drawer, ragged
edge, the mania, assure the populace
to make it through another generation.
Beauty is trade, what you get for it. What is
value? Behead my bloom.
In the brack of sand and mulch, farm
compost, rising above the North Sea, far
from the sultan, mathematical
form, a color to ignite Eden in the
hard gray flatness. Peel to my quick,
smuggled to Utrecht, gloved under
ground, more expectant
than midwinter sun. Later, I figure in still-
life paintings with flowers that could not
possibly bud at the same time.
All my manipulations bred without scent,
regrafted, seeded, stored
in burlap, in a cellar drawer, ragged
edge, the mania, assure the populace
to make it through another generation.
Beauty is trade, what you get for it. What is
value? Behead my bloom.
Platonic
I ordained
the body once,
oracle, skeletal,
an outline. Hung
skin, lost layer
of muscle. How
to carry less
weight when
the only way to
ecstasy was
starve it.
the body once,
oracle, skeletal,
an outline. Hung
skin, lost layer
of muscle. How
to carry less
weight when
the only way to
ecstasy was
starve it.
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Andrea Carter is from Southern California. Her work is forthcoming or appears in The Comstock Review, Catamaran, Painted Bride Quarterly, Terrain, The Common Ground, SWWIM, and The Florida Review. A finalist for the Bellingham Review Poetry Prize, she won the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize. She teaches at UC San Diego.
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